Tick Tock
by Setsana
Summary: An alternate take on Captain Hook's story. Oneshot.


**A/N: I really wish Captain Hook wasn't named Killian Jones in Once Upon A Time. Here is the tale I might have told instead...**

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_Tick Tock_

When the Captain was a boy, he lived a pleasant life with his loving mother at the family inn. His mother took great care of him, and despite their lack of status, taught him the manners of a gentleman. But the boy always yearned for adventure. When his father passed away, he did his best to become the man of the family and make sure his mother was well taken care of. His first adventure happened quite by accident, when a drunken seafaring man died while staying at the inn, leaving behind a map to hidden treasure. With his father gone, the boy knew he needed to help support his mother, and set out to find the treasure and bring it home to her.

And so he had his great adventure seeking treasure, travelling to new lands and fighting against (and alongside) pirates. Arriving home, he presented his mother with the treasure and they lived happily for some time.

But as years passed, the young boy found that he missed the sea, the ships, the adventure. So he paid for his own ship, the Jolly Roger, with some of the treasure, gathered a crew, and set sail, promising his mother that he would return to check on her at the inn every 5 years. He did not tell her where he would go or what he would do, for he did not want her to know that her son had been lured into the life of a pirate.

10 years passed, and the boy was now a man, Captain of the famed pirate ship. As promised, he visited his mother at the inn, for the second time since leaving. They reunited happily and he gave her a share of gold coins so that she may continue to live comfortably. Finished with his business, he and his crew go to a local tavern. There, he meets a beautiful woman, Milah, who provides good company and tells him of her coward husband that she is avoiding. The Captain finds her to be a kind and virtuous woman living an unfortunate life, reminding him of his mother. The husband arrives trying to bring her home, but Milah refuses until she sees her little boy. The Captain, having fallen in love with the woman, believes she deserves a better life and a better man, and so takes her away to live a life of adventure with him at sea. When her husband arrives on his ship the next morning, the Captain asks:

"Where are my manners? We haven't been formally introduced. Captain Jim Hawkins. Now what are you doing aboard my ship?"

The husband tries to take Milah back but Captain Hawkins drives him away.

5 years later, Captain Hawkins returns to the Benbow Inn to visit his mother, only to find that she has died of old age in the time he has been gone. Heading back to his ship, he crosses paths with a rat of a man - more like a crocodile - who reveals himself to be Rumpelstiltskin, The Dark One. And we know how the rest goes - Rumpelstiltskin kills Milah with magic, and inspires the Captain's new name - Captain Hook (not the first pirate to have a severed limb). Despaired, Hook yearns for the clock to turn back to a time when his loved ones were alive and when he had a chance to kill Rumpelstiltskin. Tick tock.

And so, having finally lost everything in this world but his ship, Captain Hook goes to a new land. A land where he and his crew may never grow old or lonely, where youth is everlasting, where friends and loved ones do not grow old and die, where the feelings of adventure he experienced as a child can be once more.

Neverland.

And there he would meet a boy, no older than Hook was when he went on his first adventure, who would be a carefree child forever, and who lived among the magical creatures of the land. And so Hook loathed the child, for he reminded him of all he lost over time, he lived the everlasting childhood Hook now wished for, and he soared through the skies with magic, like the magic that tore his beloved from him.

But Hook knew where vengeance was truly needed, and so waited in eternal youth for his chance to return home and slay his crocodile.

Tick Tock.

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**A/N: Sorry if it's kind of poorly written, I just quickly threw it down in writing because I love this idea. I wish they did this sort of take on Hook in OUAT, but ah well I shall just be content with it as my own little story. :)**

**Please review!**


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